Turkey's Justice and Development Party (AKP), after coming to power in 2002, sought to play a larger diplomatic role in the Middle East. The AKP adopted a proactive foreign policy to create 'strategic depth' by expanding Turkey's zone of influence in the region, drawing on the opportunities of geography, economic power and imperial history to reconnect the country with its historical hinterland. Yet despite early promise, this policy came undone after the Arab upheavals of 2011 and has seen Turkey increasingly at odds with its neighbours and the West.

Turkey's New Foreign...

A UN arms embargo has been in place against North Korea for nearly a decade, as part of a broader sanctions regime designed to deny it the goods and funds needed to fuel its nuclear weapons and ballistic-missile programmes. Yet despite these sanctions, a host of state and non-state actors continue to buy arms, material and services from Pyongyang and inject funds into the same coffers that drive North Korea s nuclear and missile development. While some of North Korea s military customers in the sanctions era since 2006 are well known such as Iran, Syria and Burma Pyongyang s wider client...

India is growing into one of Asia's most important military powers. Its defence budget has more than doubled in the past decade, and it imports more arms than anyone else in the world. But India is still seen as a land power focused on long, disputed and militarised borders with Pakistan and China rather than the global military force it was in the first half of the twentieth century under British rule. Is this changing? India is acquiring increasing numbers of key platforms - aircraft carriers, amphibious ships, refuelling tankers and transport aircraft - that are extending its reach to...

The relationship between government and the businesses that contribute towards the defence and security of the state is a critical one; it often underscores a modern state's foreign policy and sense of place in the world. Yet, despite its clear importance, this subject is underexplored and rarely analysed in a rigorous manner. As a consequence, government defence industrial policies, if they exist at all, often seem somewhat contrived, ill-considered and contradictory.　

The Defence Industrial Triptych systematically analyses the components and drivers of the...

Despite the rise of new security threats like terrorism, cyber-war and piracy, the terrible destructive power of nuclear weapons still hangs over the world. Discussion on further strategic nuclear arms reduction has tended to be dominated by the analysis of possible trade-offs between the US and Russia. But as the prospect of further cuts below New START levels is contemplated, increasing attention needs to be paid to the possible shape of a new, multi-power approach to nuclear restraint.

While restraint at low numbers goes with the grain of thinking in most nuclear states,...

In 2006, British forces entered the Helmand Province of Afghanistan in what would become one of the defining military campaigns of the decade. At great cost in blood and treasure, the UK waged a protracted counter-insurgency against a resurgent Taliban.

But how was the decision taken to commit Britain to such a difficult and drawn out campaign? The Afghan Papers is the result of private interviews with and frank contributions by some of the most important actors in the fateful decision. Former generals, politicians and civil servants contribute to an original RUSI analysis...

Between 1991　and　2002, Sierra Leone was wracked by a devastating civil war and the complete collapse of state institutions. Since then, however, the UK's contribution to post-war reconstruction has been widely held up as an example of successful stabilisation and state-building - particularly of the country's security and justice institutions.　

Securing Sierra Leone, 1997-2013　examines how the process of state-building through security-sector reform developed in Sierra Leone, and the impact of this experience on international conceptualisations...